My brother was playing World of Warcraft on his computer, running through some new level/location. I noticed the game music as I walked by.

Joshua: Wow…that’s pretty relaxing mood music for a computer game.

Nick: Yeah…

Joshua: It sounds…sounds like you’re inside Enya’s womb…

Nick: Yeah…

30 in the Mirror May be Closer Than It AppearsSo I’m 29 today (yesterday…it’s late). I don’t feel panicky that this is the last year of my 20’s…I just feel vaguely obligated to be so. I sometimes fear stagnation, of extinguishing. But age, in and of itself…well…my freshman year of college, in my acting class, we had a make-up section and the final project was to make ourselves geriatric and I discovered one thing about myself that day…I’m going to be one sexy-ass old man.

Thanks for all the well wishes, everyone.

For my birthday, my Mom wove her pottery-wheel magic and whipped me up a batch of coffee mugs, drinking cups and house plant pots decorated in smiley-muerte skulls. It’s the macabre and motherly love all swirled together in the primordial embrace of earthen ware. It makes me smile like the skulls.

Novel Deadlines, Horror Anthologies, and Epic TeachingsThe deadline for my completed draft of the White Wolf novel is now June 1st. It’s getting close. I still have most of it to write. I’ll likely have to disappear, for the most part, until June.

Several Mondays ago, I met with a few Chicago writers and talked through the seeds of what will be a horror anthology…but with an interesting method and progression of story to story, author to author (I don’t know what details I can say just yet). I’m pretty excited about it. We’re creating a shared mythology and setting. I’ve already read the rough draft of the first story and things are progressing from there. Sometimes after June 1st, I’ll get started on my story.

On Friday, I visited my friend, Genenda, who teaches high school English, and talked to three of her classes about poetry, some of its history, mythology, how storytelling changes when working with a known mythos, and how epics tie into todays media. The kids were pretty good, many of them interested, a few asking good questions about writing, and even one asked me about writing epic poetry. To top it all off, I got to read a story and a poem and perform some improv acting at an open mic at the local coffee shop…all lubricated with three, pre-birthday double-whiskey’s and cokes. And Sabra sang the coolest version of a Brittany Spears song that I’ve ever heard.Book of Dead Thing Event

And some days I stare off into the stratosphere and think to myself, Thank God I’m not allergic to peanuts.Peanut butter would be a too, too delicious suicide.

And I had my birthday over the weekend and I’m another year more clever and 360 days cuter.

Humans travel in time in a unique way.We go a whole year being one age – when you’re 27, you are 27 (with no variance) for the whole year, up to the day before your birthday.And then, BAM, in one day you age a year.Time manipulation: slow-fast-slow-fast.That’s the dance.Repeat until exhausted . . . but flourish often (trust me).

I had a fun weekend.I petted a shark and a stingray.I had my fortune told to me by a mechanical gypsy.I ran into a tame raccoon in a tunnel.I saw the museum of mischief and madness.I squeezed into a photo booth with two lovely ladies for pictures.I saw exotic insects.I slept in the grass by a pond because the Art Museum was closed and we had time to kill.I saw a stage play version of Plan 9 From Outer Space (it was most excellent).

All the above was accomplished in St. Louis, where two of my favorite females, Genenda and Torrie, celebrated with me.We went to a theatre’s garage sale, the City Museum (the most unique museum I’ve ever been to…I recommend it), The Zoo (which is free in St. Louis), the Art Museum (free as well…but closed when we got there), and finally the Plan 9 play at the Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre (I think that’s the name of the group).

Lots of driving this weekend, I passed the time listening to American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, on audio and had the strange, surreal experience of driving through the places mentioned in the book as the protagonist traveled to many of the same places that I passed through…right down to driving over the Big Muddy River.

And to top it all off, I got to celebrate my Goddaughter, Reese’s first birthday at Chuckee Cheeses.She’s an adorable and very happy kid.Sky-Ball should be an Olympic sport.

And, finally, since Saturday marked the anniversary of my birth, and because I happen to have gotten the digital version of a lot of old photos, I thought I’d embarace myself by posting a few of them up where just a few dozen of my most personal friends (and any internet lurkers) could view them.So . . . if you dare . . . travel back in TIME . . .

YIKES!!! OK…that’s probably too far back in time. Oh well. Here I am, seconds after being born, at home.

Here I ham giving some of my first literary criticisms…

And forward in time . . .

Me crawling around…with a Damien sort of a hair cut,

Yeah, my Spiderman fixation goes way back.

Me and my little brother.

I believe that’s me and my little sister.

Nick and I: so adorable…you’ll puke…

First day of school…

People are sometimes perplexed by my near obsessive like of Halloween. But I think it stretches back to good memories…very early on:

And if you still don’t understand…read more Ray Bradbury (he understands why Halloween is important).

Incidentally, those pumpkins are from a pumpken patch that my Great Grandparents had on their farm when they were alive. We’d go there and pick pumpkins every Halloween.

And this picture is photographic proof, PROOF that I was doing the pirate thing long before the Disney movies (though I may not have been drinking rum just then…).

Wow….I was cool…yeah…

And here, my brother, sister, and I are going through that milestone that every family goes through: being eaten by King Kong.

Nick and I, some where, at some point in time.

Here I am doing my civic duty and holding up the arches in Utah.

I’m about to go sky diving here. And yes, those straps near the crotch…they hurt…

Here, Nick and I performed a magic show in high school. That’s our principal. We shoved a flaming torch through his head for the finale.

My brother, dad, and I doing some wildlife photography in the Florida Everglades (in 98′ I believe).

Here’s a Halloween with my cousin Steve, Nick, and I (5 or six years back). That’s right…we were still trick or treating in college…but we entertained people with magic tricks and strange behavior, so it was alright.

Ozzie (a friend of mine and Chicago cop in the Gang division and member of our local magic club) said this to me, on Sunday, as we hopped on a plane in Boston (or maybe it was Hartford) on our way home from a Magician’s convention near Cape Cod.He was prompted to say the statement when, while trying to find my photo ID, I accidentally pulled out my Clergy card and had to explain to him why I have legal status as Reverend.

“You lead the strangest life.”

I told him that most of the time I didn’t even have to look for these things . . . they tend to come to me.Case in point:the Sunday before that…I found myself dead, my face in a plate of spaghetti, in Chicago, having been shot in the back of the head.

I didn’t ask for it.

But my brother, Nick, was acting in a student film in Chicago, a sort of Noir film about the mob’s top hit man, Fatso (he’s not fat…that’s just his name).Nick plays the hit man.The script was actually pretty neat and I like the fact that even though the movie is named after the character…he doesn’t actually speak any lines (all the dialogue goes to the mob boss villain and the bumbling killer he sends after the crafty Fatso).

That’s all well and good, Josh, but why were you dead in a plate of spaghetti?

Well, inner voice, an actor bailed out on them.At the start of the film, the bumbling killer, sent to gack Fatso, kills the wrong man (and gets chewed out about it by his boss).So . . . they needed an actor who looked kind of like Nick, was more heavy set, and could promptly show up with a fedora and overcoat.Yeah…I guess that’s the part I was born to play…

Incidentally…I think that would be a cooler title, Dead in a Plate of Spaghetti.

My best days tend to be the ones where I don’t know where I’m going to be . . . and I learned something that day–under two inches of angel hair pasta and sauce, you can’t breathe.But it seems like a cool little flick.And Nick gets to burst out of a body bag, guns blazing, and kill everyone at the end.I kind of envied him that . . . but then again, I got to play a hit man in a student film once upon a time, too . . .

THIS WEEKEND

OK, that brings us to this weekend.I’m celebrating my birthday.Saturday, I’m going with some friends to St. Louis to raid a closing theatre’s garage sale for oddities, visiting the Six Flags down there, and then seeing the worst movie of all time, Plan 9 From Outer Space (if you haven’t seen it…it’s a riot) at a theatre.

Anyone feeling intrepid enough can come along (can probably work out rides from various locations in IL…depending).And there may be free tickets to Six Flags involved.